Clever ways with Send To

One of the real Windows goodies is the Send To list in the pop-up menu when you right-click a file or an Icon. As it stands, the Send To options include some useful standards … send the file to a floppy, to an email recipient, to the desktop as a shortcut … and a couple more.

But you can easily add to those options. You might want to have a variety of different destination folders, plus maybe your printer. Send To for a popular application, such as Notepad, Word and image editor, are handy too.

Start by creating a shortcut to the thing you want to add … this is easily done by holding down the right mouse button while you drag it to your desktop. XP users can release it if the plus sign is showing; that creates a shortcut. Users of 98 and ME will have to release it and select “Create Shortcut Here”. Click the new icon, press F2 and give the shortcut any name you want. Alternatively, right click and “rename” it.

Do these as often as you need for the extra Send To items. By the way, printers can be dragged on to the desktop to create shortcuts in the same manner.

Now collect all the shortcut icons on your desktop … right-click on each while holding down Ctrl … and press Ctrl, X to cut them. Use Explorer (Window key + E) to go to C:\Windows\SendTo (for Windows 98/ME) or C:\Documents and Settings\[username] (for XP – it’s a hidden file so you might have to go to Tools, Folder Options, View and select Show hidden files and folders).

Right-click that folder and select Paste. You’ll see that you’re newly created shortcuts join the existing ones. Now try out your revised Send To command you’ll see your newly created shortcuts will be included in the list.An even quicker way...

There’s a neat trick that provides a quicker way to add a shortcut to the Send To menu: you add a shortcut to the Send To folder itself.

Here’s how, locate the Send To folder and drag it on to the desktop to create a shortcut. Then cut and past the shortcut into the Send To folder as before. Sounds odd, but it works.

Now, when you want to add a program destination to the Send To folder, right-click the program in Windows Explorer and choose Send To, Shortcut to Send To. That will put a new shortcut into the Send To menu.

WARNING: Don’t try using this technique to add folders to the Send To menu … you won’t get a shortcut there, you’ll move the entire folder there.

If your Send To menu starts to get unwieldy, just group the contents logically into subfolder. Use Explorer to go to the Send To menu and create subfolders as normal. The subfolders will appear in the Send To list, with their contents in a submenu.